Hormiguero takes its name from a chiclero camp that existed near the archaeological vestiges in the decade of the 30, of the last century, when Karl Ruppert and John Denison toured the region.

Hormiguero was reported by Karl Ruppert and John Dennison during his second expedition to Campeche, sent by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in April 1933. However, it was not until 1979 that the first conservation and excavation work was undertaken. Today we know that the period of greatest occupation of the site has been recorded, according to the archaeological evidence, between the years 600 and 800 of our era, within the period known as Late Classic. Its main architectural feature is a building whose facade is divided into three, leaving to the center a large masquerade flanked by towers of rounded corners with simulated staircases typical of this region. The mask presents, as an entrance to the temple, a monstrous mouth opening its jaws, a concept that is interpreted as a threshold between the outside world and the underworld.